The United Nations and the European Commission are seeking $681-million to meet the needs of 30-million vulnerable people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said on Monday.
In a statement marking the launch of the DRC’s 2006 humanitarian action plan in Brussels, Belgium, Ocha described the scale of the crisis as immense, and said it has ”in some way affected virtually all of the country’s 60-million inhabitants”.
UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs Jan Egeland was quoted as saying each day more than 1 200 people in DRC die from the lingering effects of civil war: malnutrition, disease and displacement.
”We must end this tyranny of silence,” he said. ”We can — we must — do more to alleviate such extreme suffering. Now is the time to act,” he said.
On the occasion of the official launch of the DRC action plan, the UN and the European Commission have convened a ministerial conference, hosted by the Belgian government, to bring together the all of the actors who can help alleviate suffering in the DRC.
”Congo has enormous potential that can be developed and boosted,” Louis Michel, the European Union commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, said. ”There are few places on Earth where the gap between humanitarian needs and available resources is as large as in Congo, but there are also few places in the world where peace and stability can so dramatically reverse this situation.”
Ocha reported that at least four million Congolese have died as a result of years of continuing conflict. It said the DRC has been called the most deadly humanitarian catastrophe in 60 years.
Ocha said more than 1,6-million remain displaced, 200 000 are newly displaced in Katanga and North Kivu provinces, and just less than 1,7-million of recent returnees only now are starting to rebuild their homes and livelihoods. It added that life expectancy has dropped by 10 years since the beginning of the war in 1997.
”In the troubled eastern provinces killings, abductions and sexual violence continue. Humanitarian access in some areas remains a major challenge,” Ocha said.
According to Ocha, the 2006 action plan is the result of intensive work of the entire humanitarian community in the DRC, including field-based donors, UN agencies and the NGO community. It seeks to meet the needs for food security, health, reintegration, protection, HIV/Aids, coordination, education, water and sanitation, shelter, mine action and gender. It includes more than 330 projects that cost $681-million.
Ocha said the plan presents a strategy that meets both urgent life-saving needs and reduces vulnerability, and looks beyond a one-year time frame, presenting a select number of highly focused targeted programmes that will help accelerate recovery and poverty reduction in hard-hit areas in the country after the elections.
”We strongly believe the 2006 DRC action plan presents a clear and realistic plan to address the continuing humanitarian catastrophe in the DRC,” Ross Mountain, the deputy special representative of the secretary general, said.
Meanwhile, international NGO Oxfam said in a statement on Monday that donor governments ”must rise to the challenge of meeting real needs” across the DRC, which is at a critical point of both humanitarian crisis and democratic transition.
”In the rush to support democratic elections donor governments must not forget the thousands of deaths weekly cause by the horrific conflict raging in the east of the country,” Gordon Kihuguru, the DRC’s country programme manager, said. ”People will continue to pay with their lives until donor governments come up with vital funds for food, water and health care to reach the millions in need.”
He added: ”The democratic process is vital in the long term, but providing millions of people with enough food and water to survive each day and working to bring peace has to be the immediate priority, as dead people cannot vote.” — Irin